Tag Archives: daily

It’s been a long, long time. Can’t tell how much I missed blogging. I was taking some time off to give a push to travel writing and starting my very own travel venture (details of which I will be sharing soon!).

A lot has happened all this while. Moving my base from New Delhi to Singapore is the most significant one. I hope the move increases my exploring journeys in South East Asia (fingers crossed!). Singapore is an amazing city and precisely a reason for my comeback. I want to resume my everyday writing that will focus on living in Singapore. So, watch out for all the interesting posts on food, people, places, travel, shopping and much more.

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Here comes the April exclusively for the Autistics. This post is dedicated to my friend’s autistic brother and I know, though it’s bit difficult to put up with them but you love these innocent harmless and intelligent beings.

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In today’s world unexpected kindness from a stranger is often derided.

I have a superb instance to explain this perception. I was listening to a radio channel while coming back from office that was asking people to call them and narrate any incident happened with them while waiting at the tolls. So a caller narrated that he saw a guy in parallel row who not only paid toll fee for his car but for the car just behind it as a gesture of kindness. By the way the toll fee is just Rs.21 which is not even a dollar. After paying, drivers of both the cars exchanged looks and appreciated the gesture. This caller was really impressed by this and he thought of doing the same. So, when his turn came he did the same, paid the toll fee for the car behind it. When the caller and the car behind his crossed the barrier, he waited for the rear car and showed thumbs up as a sign of generosity. He saw the the driver of the other car was a woman and she indicated him to pull over to the side of the road. She then removed her goggles and roared at him saying “Do you think you can impress me with Rs.21?” “What do you think you were trying to do”. This was not enough she even took out Rs.21 that included a coin and threw on this guy’s face leaving him speechless.

It sounded hilarious when he was narrating it on radio. Though it makes me think whether it was because of unwanted kindness from a stranger or from a male stranger. Had a female paid the toll fee for that woman, would there be any change in her reaction?

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I am sure there are many women and men out there who grow hair hoping to get a nice celebrity like haircut that will make them stand out in the crowd as they flip their hair. I am not shy to accept I was following it since last 5-6 months. I had even researched on trendy haircuts of 2013. Collected the pictures of celebrities with matching face shapes, height, body type, hair type etc. My excitement was on zenith when I used to think about the time I’ll finally go to the salon and get a desired haircut. So, the time came.

I was so impatient to get a haircut that I didn’t even wait for the weekend or to gather thoughts on pinning down the final haircut I would want to have but a faint image of a cool haircut. So last Friday evening I took an appointment with my hairdresser. I was his last appointment at 7.30 pm, he was all ready to go home but waited just for me. Sweet. Inadvertently I took the seat while he started the procedure. So when he asked me how do I want him to cut my hair, I gave him a long list of this and that, even showed some pics of my friends on Facebook. He gave me those thoughtful looks and analyzed and gave an honest opinion on what will ‘not’ suit me. Finally as usual I shrugged and said cut what you like. And like a person I am who believes in all goodness of this world I left it on him because I trusted him while I was torpidly going through the magazines. In between he did ask me if I wanted my hair only one inch short, I always knew I was weak in maths and said no even shorter. While he was all done giving it a last touch and drying my hair.. Ouch !!! It became too short than what I wanted with every strand dancing in different direction I was a mirror image to an Ostrich. As I was getting all paranoid he tried all fancy stuff to settle down my hair and it looked wowy with all that special effects.

After two days when I took a hair wash..yoohoo the Ostrich is back ..like it never left just ducked its head in the sand. But you know what put me at ease when 3-4 people I know also got a bad haircut. Wicked :-). I believe it’s a season of bad haircuts. Good thing is hair grows. So will have to wait for a month to get a normal look until then thanks for inventing bobby pins and hairbands.

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Do you like to pat dogs you come across on streets. I do, till today evening.

Following my usual routine I was rushing to my gym. My gym is just 5 minutes walk from my home so I was walking leisurely appreciating my well maintained neighborhood. As I ambled engrossed in my thoughts, I saw him. Like everyday he was searching something in the bush, waging his tail, sticking his tongue out. What are you supposed to do to see a cute little dog like that? Pat right !! And that’s what I did. So, he slowly came to me with immense love in his eyes and I welcomed it too. As I brushed my hand on his head and walked past him, bummer!! he caught my bum!! I screamed as I realized that he bit me. I kicked him to save myself and he groped my leg. Suddenly instead of cute innocence in his eyes I saw rage. I don’t know what for. As the owner heard my scream he came running and caught him. But it took me a while to digest that I was bitten by that cute looking animal. I got beguiled by his looks.

I was terrified walking back home the same way. Like the dog lover I am, still clueless of what made that dog bit me. What was he thinking, he sees me everyday so I was an innocuous stranger. Whatsoever. I came back and disclosed the news to my mother hoping to receive some sympathy but instead she yelled at me alleging me of being a blind dog lover. She accused me that I annoy dogs with my patting and so he bit me.

Well, I don’t think I am a compulsive dog lover, it just happens but I’ll try to understand that moods of my lovers to avoid any bites.

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Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is not hatred towards any country but has an underlying compelling issue.

There are certain days when I pray to God to relocate me to some super developed country in a snap of fingers. Today was that day. And you’ll know why.

I often take local train to work and for back home. Like everyday I left from work hurriedly hoping to catch my regular but my legs gave up halfway and I missed my usual train. Ideally the frequencies of these trains should be every 15-20 mins but like it never works this way I waited for 1 whole hour for the damn train. Not that I didn’t have alternate options to go home but since I live about 32-35 Kms away I prefer going by trains. So the combination of heat, staring eyes and the eternal wait was irking me from within. But nothing I could do, I waited, boarded the next train and reached home quite late. I get really bad mood swings when I get back home late as it disrupts my routine. I missed work out too. But in a way I feel relaxed as I get time to watch TV and for blogging.

My experience above is just a quarter of the reason of my prayer for relocation.

I am a very avid follower of politics and current affairs so when I watch news I go really deep into it. I understand that socio economic woes of India is the part and parcel of living in huge democratic and a developing country, so something like that shouldn’t incite me to write on it. Instead I felt baffled when I saw that my neighboring country China has encroached 640 sq. km. of the eastern most state of India. While all this is happening under the nose of the government, the 1.2 billion people of my country are totally oblivion of the fact that their land is being intruded silently. It’s not been long when the northern most state of India was in the news due to the repetitive intrusion and chaos being caused by another neighbor – Pakistan. The insistent vendetta with China and Pakistan is not an overnight issue, it is there since even the time before my father was born. However I am more perturbed by the inability and the impotency of my government to combat this issue.

I take an interest in knowing about a country through its people so I pick books which are either the memoirs or biographies in the backdrop of socio-civil issues of the countries. This way, I get not only the political history of the country but also the account of the miseries seen by people in those times. Among my favorites are North Korea, Liberia, Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, Europe during Hitler times, Tibet and other countries. Such books burn my heart out and I am left pondering how hard times people of these countries must have seen. Today while watching the news of Chinese intrusion I somehow felt myself in the shoes of those people. And suddenly I started imaging that how lives will be different from now seating in my air-conditioned room than desperately looking for smuggling myself to US. That one hour session of news on Chinese invasion almost convinced me that it’s a deadly situation and I am losing my territory to Chinese slowly.

In the wake of danger I said to my parents “Lets leave this country and go somewhere safe” to which my mom said “And where is that?”

I took a while and assessed I would not want to go from a developing country to another developing country like Brazil or Philippines for that matter that leaves Africa out of the question; USA although lucrative is quite vulnerable due to its intermittent intervention in the matters of other countries; Gulf or the Middle East would be last on my list; somewhere like Finland or Norway would need physical sustenance which I as a habitant of hot country lacks; Europe sounds good but what will I do there, not easy to get work visa; Australia can be good but migration is not easy…

While I still figure out the safest place for my migration, I make another prayer to give Indian diplomats the grit and wit to solve the issue at their level avoiding the situation where I would have to leave my air-conditioned and peaceful home.

Today was my street shopping day with a friend. Anybody traveling to New Delhi especially a woman should definitely visit Sarojini Nagar if shopping is one of the things on your list. This place is not only cheap but you get defected original high street brands (well the defection is not evident from a naked eye); exported stuff, knock-offs, and stolen originals. So you see paradise for a shopper!!. Highly recommended.

With the description of the market you can make out how efficient you have to be in your bargaining skills. You have to bring out the best in you in this shopping paradise. I would rate myself as an average bargainer as in I would only say twice to the shopkeeper and then if I really like the stuff I will buy it :(. But frequent visits to this place has honed my shopping skills, now I don’t give up that easily and have also even tried walking past the shopkeepers if they don’t agree with my price. And they call me back with my price!!

So, somebody who is a locale, knows the language, knows the functioning of this market and is also enhancing bargaining skills got duped. At least I feel so. A nice branded expensive watch has been on my list for long. So when my friend and I was buying some women stuff, suddenly we heard a voice “Madame do you want a real Gucci or a Tommy Hilfiger watch?” At first we snubbed him but he was persistent. He started taking out watches of various brands from his various pockets (he had like uncountable number of watches hidden in his clothes).

“How do we believe you, this doesn’t look original?” asked my friend.

“Madame this is original, but it is stolen, you will find the same watch in the showrooms for US$150, I will give you in US$40.” said the seller.

Well even 40 bucks is quite expensive in this market, my whole budget for this shopping was US$40!!! yes imagine it is dirt cheap place. So we ignored the guy and gave him reasons for not buying it although we did like it. It was not at all looking a rip-off plus it came with a box. We asked for more proofs for its authenticity and he showed us some hieroglyphic numbers. Somehow that guy sounded convincing. Even to my friend who is a lawyer!! So after 3-4 denials we thought of buying it because the guy was so pushy. We bargained and got him down to US$32 for two watches. After a bargaining rally finally he agreed and we felt victorious, we paid, and he scampered away.

After a moment we kept thinking if it was a good bet. We again checked the watches and this time somehow we felt those were fakes. Although till now it is a mystery to us if we bought the originals or fakes. Because if these are fakes then we lost good amount of money. And till the end of our shopping day we kept asking each other if we were duped!!

So getting tricked in your own country convinces a thought that getting tricked in a foreign land is no shame.